9 Mind-Blowing Tech Projects That Prove The Future Is Now

If biology has one thing over robotics, it’s the advantage of time. Over the 4 billion-ish years that life has been evolving, some pretty complex biological systems have arisen. These are far superior to what we can produce using machines alone. One example is the olfactory system (your sense of smell).

Imagine walking through a mall. Close your eyes, and chances are you can still tell what’s nearby. You may smell Chinese food and McDonalds wafting from the food court ahead of you. Leather from a nearby shoe store. Floral scents emitted by a Body Shop on your left, and fresh coffee from the Starbucks on your right. Life forms have evolved the ability to distinguish and identify thousands of scents all at once.

Locusts are no exception. Even with a relatively primitive brain, these creepy-crawlies are able to detect hundreds of thousands of odors and put them in context, even in the presence of many other scents. By comparison, our most advanced miniaturized chemical sensors have only a few detectors.

By reading the neural activity of locusts, scientists are able to tell what chemicals they’re sensing. They’re even able to steer them using a thermal tattoo that responds to remote control signals. The outcome will eventually be an army of cybernetic locusts that can be used to detect explosives.

First locusts then… humans? We could one day look on cybernetic animals as the first step towards technologies that integrate with the human body, a la The Matrix.